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Manpower Incorporated
Manpower Incorporated was a genetic engineering company based on the planet Mesa. Its manufacturing of genetic slaves, though outlawed by many star nations, was one of the backbones of the Mesan economy. History Manpower was originally founded by Leonard Detweiler of Beowulf under the name Detweiler Consortium. In the 15th Century PD, after Detweiler and his followers had migrated to the Mesa System through the Visigoth Wormhole, he renamed the consortium Manpower, Incorporated, mostly to put a thumb in the eye to the anti-human engineering establishment on Beowulf. ( ) In the 19th and 20th Centuries PD, Manpower employees were the main targets of the organization of escaped slaves known as the Audubon Ballroom; if captured by members of the Ballroom, they often died very badly. ( ) Organization Manpower was controlled by the Board of Directors under a Chairman who pulled most of the strings.Unknown even to most Mesans, this chairman was a member of the Detweiler family, which secretly controlled Mesa during all of its history. ( , ) Slaving business ID codes Manpower's "products" had an ID code embedded on their tongues by genetic means (it appeared much like a tattoo). The code consisted of four components: ::line - variant gender / batch - in order of extraction from breeding chamber For example, the code K-86b/273-1/5 stood for a K-line personal servant, variant 86, gender b (male), from batch 273, who was the first of five products to be extracted from the breeding chamber in that batch. This code signified a male slave designed as a personal servant or retainer who entertained by juggling and gymnastics. ( ) Production lines *The C-line was a popular line of sex slaves. *The D-line was a general utility line, minimal genetic engineering. *The E-line was a general utility line, minimal genetic engineering. *The F-line was a line bred for heavy manual labor. *The J-line was a technical workers breed. *The K-line was a line of personal servants, created in a multitude of slight variants. *The V-line was a line of technical combat breeds, trained in martial arts like Coup de vitesse. ( ) Business operations Manpower's products were distributed to various destinations throughout the Galaxy, largely to criminal enterprises as slavery was officially outlawed almost everywhere. In fact, a number of pleasure resorts were avid customers of Manpower's pleasure slave lines, remote mining and manufacturing stations of the technical and heavy labor lines, and so on. Manpower maintained depots in various places with the connivance of the local authorities, which served as transshipment points for the product. Slaves were distributed via slave ships with distinctive arrangements for handling that cargo, including ways to force all slaves on board out large airlocks to quickly remove at least some evidence of the cargo in case of interception by naval forces from a star nation which enforced the near universal prohibition against slavery. It was because of this tendency that the "equipment clause" of the Cherwell Convention came to be. Mesan shipping companies, notably the Jessyk Combine (secretly owned and controlled by Manpower) were typically used for larger shipments, up to thousands at a time. Local distribution was often handled by independent slavers who handled smaller numbers. ( ) Manpower's operations were opposed with considerable effect by the Star Kingdom of Manticore and the Republic of Haven, whatever the current political situation there. It was less actively opposed by the Andermani Empire, and some Solarian League Navy forces. Other Solarian League military units, and most of those in the Silesian Confederacy, were essentially collaborators as slavers and slave ships captured by them very often were back in business within a short time, and rarely were the crews executed or imprisoned for long periods. ( ) Manpower also had a thirty-percent stake in Cybercom of Mesa and Noroguchi Nanotech. ( ) References Category:Companies Category:Mesan Companies Category:Mesan Genetic Lines